I have been thinking about how Business works for a long time now. Due to the changes that are happening I am going to give my insight of what I have learned over my journey in business. As well, how you can change your business preparing for the New Paradigm shift. This post is not going to be about large corporations because I believe there is going to be a shift in Big Business as we know it. It is more for the self-employed entrepreneurs.
The History
I will give you a little glimpse into my work and business history, so you can see I have had many different experiences bringing me to where I am now. You can scroll down past this part to “The Truth” section if you don’t need to know my history.
My work history in the corporate world started when I was 14yrs old. I was working at a McDonald’s restaurant to make money to be able afford to go out with the boys; buy the clothes I wanted…etc. I was having a great time by learning customer service, policies/procedures and working with clients. I saw that the corporate model was very hard to be in because it was very structured and if you went against it you would be fired. I loved the pay off; I was able to get what I felt I needed so I never challenged what I was told for the F.E.A.R. I would be fired. It also started to show me the difference of the haves and have not’s and I wanted to be a have. So I decided to work harder, longer hours took extra shifts which meant I would receive more money that I could buy more things.
I wasn’t truly happy and eventually I became greedy to the point I got fired from McDonald’s. I didn’t steal money, I took food without paying for it which again was stupid, and I understand this happens when you start getting what people call a “God Complex” when you don’t have a deeper value and/or appreciation. I want to clarify this was all me, had nothing to do with my upbringing, the way my Grandmother raised me. It had to do with me not appreciating the value of money and the energy around it. Listening to my negative ego that I heard “it was ok to take the food, you’re their golden boy, you work extra hours, and you could do no wrong”. I took a 24 pack of Chicken nuggets and went and sat in the restaurant and ate them. Not the smartest thing to do right. Needless to say they saw me and I was fired. This was a great lesson at an early age which I never forget.
After that I moved up into better paying jobs, first starting to work warehousing as a shipper/receiver. Then I was lucky enough that I was offered a position as an Assistant Warehouse Manager at 19yrs of age from my Martial Arts Instructor at the time. He was amazing; he taught me a lot about managing, working with staff and how to run a warehouse. The challenge was as soon as he stopped working for the company the system changed which then opened the doors to what was really going on. I found out my previous manager was protecting us from a lot of the corporate politics so we could do our work and be happy. Once he left we were now fully exposed to the corporate information and all the battles he was dealing with. Eventually the Management decided they wanted to go with a distribution plant and laid us all off. Another great lesson…
At the same time this was all happening I was working Event Security part-time again to make more money. Due to the layoff I took this career to another level to make even more money working as a Fulltime Security Officer at The Skydome now called the Rogers Center. Great job, got to meet a lot of amazing people, see events…etc Again some politics but nothing I haven’t seen before until I decided to go back to school. I worked out with my Security director at the time that I would switch shifts with another Security Officer on another shift so I could go back to school to become a Network Engineer. Which at the time it was the year 2000 to 2001 where people were making $60K and above just after taking a few courses and I was making about $29,000 a year. So you could see why I wanted to go back.
I was approved, got OSAP (Ontario Student Loan) for my tuition, than paid 80% of the entire tuition which was nonrefundable. At the time the only schools that just had Networking courses were private school no University and/or College had in depth networking training. That is why I had to go to a private school and pay a boat load of money up front. So my tuition was paid, I was ready to go when all of a sudden I got pulled into my Security directors office and told that she now couldn’t approve the shift changes and I couldn’t go back to school. Well you could understand I was pissed, I confirmed everything with her prior to putting down my 80% nonrefundable deposit. There was no valid reason she provided except she couldn’t approve the shift changes and me going back to school because it wouldn’t work out. Strange how the other security officer and I both agreed to a schedule change, had it all drawn out so it would work. But the director said it wouldn’t work and there was no explanation. This was my first experience of being held back for the greater good of the Business. Needless to say I quit that week and went to school; I made the decision at that time that no one was going to hold my fate in their hands except me.
It was a hard decision but worth it because I was able to get contracts that pay $18hr, than $25hr+, up to $38hr+ after a few short years being out of school. Now being able to get contracts $200/hr+ but there is more to that. Back to the few years after school, I was working full-time hours and making double what I made at the SkyDome. I was able to buy what I wanted, computers, electronics, travel and live the lifestyle that I felt I deserved. In my mind I was living the dream. But the dream was too good to be true.
When I was working contracts I had my own company and was consulting for Corporations not part of the policies and procedures, just whatever my contract agreed upon. Then one of my contracts was with the Ontario Government which gave me the option to go full-time. This was a hard decision because the mainstream thinking is get a job with the Government and you are secure for life. But my income would be cut in half, I would receive health benefits and work towards a pension plan. The big selling point which I shouldn’t have listened to was “Job Security”. There were a few challenges I was going through in my life at that time, the word around was that contract work was starting to slow down and I was told that I really didn’t have a choice if I wanted to keep working for the Ontario Government. I had to switch from Contract to Full-time status. So I felt I needed job security so I decided to apply for the position I was already doing. I knew the position inside and out as well the managers liked me at the time, which made it easy to win out against other applicants. Once working there full-time nothing really changed, but slowly there were transitions, rotations of positions, meetings after meetings about meetings. Now I was in the business part of the Ontario Government seeing a glimpse of the inside again, still being shielded by my manager of what is really going on. My Managers were great at the Ontario Government don’t get me wrong it was the system that started to get to me.
I was a Desktop support person who would go around help people with their computer issues. No big challenge, but then the projects started to come out, upgrades, application changes…etc. Which we had meetings on top of meetings about these projects. Then I started to see the territorial and power control come out, not going into details due to confidentiality I started to see easy to fix challenges be escalated. Not because the resources weren’t there to fix the issue but because the people running the projects wanted control, fixed times, approval from everyone under the sun even people who weren’t part of the project.
In my personal beliefs these were easy fixes and the personal politics did not need to hinder productivity like this. This became way too much for me so I decided to take stress leave and eventually for my health I quit the Ontario Government. Which taught me there is a lot of time, money spent on internal process and people that can be saved if the ego is left at the door before coming into meetings to make decisions.
Now since I give you a little history enough to show you I have worked on different levels of business from being an employee, Assistant Manager, running my own business, to working for one of the big Corporations not to running my own business again.
The Truth
For you Analytical mind type people who might have read a little bit of the history I am sure you are thinking. That was a waste of time. What I’m going to say to you next is probably going to be even harder for you to hear.
Business as we know it is changing, it is grumbling at our feet. We are seeing the financial repercussions of it right now, the recession and yes I will say it the depression we are in. People are still losing their jobs and looking for means to survive. A lot of people are transitioning to Home Base Business which I will talk about below. You can see people are just not happy, they would have stuck it out because they had some sort of reasoning to do so, “the company has a good retirement package”, “I wouldn’t get paid this good at other companies at this time”, “I have to look after my family”…etc. Whatever the reasoning was, has been taken away from 10′s of thousands of people if not millions of people in a blink of an eye when they and/or people around them started to get laid off. The illusion of job security went out the door.
Now that illusion of “Job Security” we all thought that we had and of course the Corporations wanted you to feel safe, to spend money that wasn’t yours like; Loans for cars, houses…etc. Then feel safe because you had a job that would pay for your loans so you could have nice things. But then BANG! The banks started to call in their loans, increase interest rates and people weren’t able to pay for their Zero down homes, so houses started to foreclose. Companies in turn started to lose money and when that happens Corporations start letting people go so they can save on the cost of employee’s. This takes away peoples sense of value, their security of what they thought they had and now people were and are in a scarcity situation. What do they do! Most people had unemployment, received a settlement package but what you have seen is the unemployment rate is so high people were out of work for 6 months to a year, if not longer. They used up all their reserves…etc Welcome to today’s society.
This is important to know when it comes to psychology and I am not a Dr. and need you to keep an open mind about this. Just read it this over and you will see that I am telling you the truth.
When you build someone up with certain expectation, giving them goals and providing rewards we will call “Salary”. People internally feel confident, comfortable in their current living standards and build up a loyalty to the process. When they keep seeing rewards this way they will be more apt to do what is asked from them, plus like me they will push the limits of their finances. By purchasing things they think they can afford because this “Salary” will pay it over time. When this process is taken away from them they just don’t lose the job, they lose the reward that is paying for their lifestyle, their homes, cars…etc. Which then they lose their sense of self and start feeling depressed, worthless…etc. I have personally been there and do coach people who have gone through this as well. It is not a great place to have your life flipped upside down because you and I have done it too. We have invested our control into a Corporation and this illusion that you have an abundance of wealth coming from them so you can spend past your realistic means.
I am not talking from just my own personal beliefs. This process I call “Control” which if you look at a lot of the Corporations this is exactly the process they provide. This starts in school you are taught to follow direction and when you do you are rewarded. Don’t talk out of line, listen to the teacher and when you are asked a question and answer it right and you will be rewarded. Then you are ranked by grades against the other classmates to start creating a competitive nature. This is for another article but look around you right now. Do you not see that in your work and how you relate to people, how you feel when someone tells you that person is better than you? Don’t you feel competitive? Be honest… I’ve been there myself, especially when I was working contracts in my early years. When I heard another contractor was doing the same work as me and was making $3 more per hour I was pissed.
This is no different from what people are going through in corporate environments. The only difference from school to now is the rewards are higher. As we grow up we do more work so we expect a bigger reward. With those rewards we purchase bigger ticket items; cars, clothes, house(s)…etc. Now we need to get more reward “Salary” to be able to pay for everything so we will work harder. See the vicious cycle?
To be honest with you the policies, processes of corporations are just to keep people in line because and I have been there, you don’t want to go against the business because this is where you are receiving your “Rewards”. So you do what you are told, don’t ask questions because you are scared you will be taken out of the process and you will lose everything. They called it “Being Fired”. See how this process controls people and keeps them in line.
People have been seeing this process, I am sure you’re seeing more and more people who are realizing it. That is why you are seeing more people going to MLM companies, Direct Marketing, Home Base business’s, opening their own business..etc. These Home base businesses have been around for years but you are seeing more and more people deciding they have had enough. A few are doing both Corporate and Home Base business at the same time because they want to make sure they don’t take a financial hit which is completely understandable. Like I said you are seeing more and more. When Social Technologies came out these businesses are more mainstream because everyone’s business is online now. Their sales/marketing campaigns are being frequently posted on most social networks. We are being overwhelmed by this type of marketing which is why people are getting frustrated. Both the people working the business and on the other side people who are receiving their posts. The business people are working so hard to get their products/services out on the internet and finding that people are not buying as quickly as they expected. Then these business people come to a conclusion that their business and the Social networking doesn’t work, so they decide to try something else. This is where you will see people jumping from business opportunity to business opportunity, paying $1,000′s of dollars in courses trying to learn how to sell better, do better video, attract more people…etc
They are all good skills to learn but that is not the “NEW Business Paradigm”. When you understand the new business paradigm you will have more clients than you can work with, you will help not only your client but also your perceived competition which I now call my business friends. There will be no competition and everyone will have an abundant lifestyle, clients will get what they need and everyone will be happy.
First let’s talk about the energy exchange so you really understand how business works on a fundamental level.
Most business’s that you work for looks like this below. The business gets large energy rewards, money, control…etc. You receive very little in true benefits; this is where control takes place. If the business takes the little rewards that you are making then you lose everything like mentioned before. You might be putting in consistent energy and sometimes a lot of your own personal energy but realistically you are getting very little in return.
When people break out of the above model they normally go into this energy shift and you will find this happens with a lot of holistic practitioners. They go into a mindset that they have to give so much and they receive little in return from their own personal business. They charge very little, they do service really for free, which they feel they are giving back. To be honest this is not the case; they are using all their energy, health, wellness…etc from themselves and draining themselves. To the point they get stressed, give up and even get sick. When the truth is they are amazing people just don’t know how to work with the energy of their business. When the learn how to work with the energy of the business they can take care of themselves and they have lots of energy to give back. That is why the image below you can see that these types of business people use so much of their energy working so hard but get little from their business in return. The business generates very little energy “Money” which makes the person work harder to try to try to get more from the business. This cycle keeps continuing until eventually something gives. Be it the person can’t do it anymore, get sick…etc. Here is what it looks like
With the New Business Paradigm, business and personal energy is equal. The energy you give is the energy you get back to help both keep the energy flowing. When this is working optimally you will see growth, abundance of time and money. Now this is not easy to do it takes proper planning, laying down the foundation and most importantly getting rid of the Negative Ego holding you back. Telling you that there are things you can and cannot do. You might have to do a lot of work at first but if you do it properly the energy will come in and keep you going, as the business grows you will be supported in turn. Which will give you more abundance so you can do more with it.
I know the image is not to scale because I drew it by hand but you can see that the energy is somewhat equal. We are not working more than what our business is giving back. The business has equal energy to us and each is balanced.
Now most of you are asking probably at this point that is all great and all but how do I do that. Sorry Business coaches, Lifestyle coaches…etc. This information I am providing would honestly cost you $1,000′s of dollars in coaching depending how quickly you are able to learn it and apply it.
Build a Business Plan
Just like a house you have to build the foundation first. Make sure you have a detailed business plan that you will refer back to. First it should be a weekly review for the first 6 months. Then once a month for the next 6 months, after that quarterly is fine to review. This is important because it makes sure you are on track. Business Plans are a whole other beast in its own, if you don’t know how to do one. Here is a quick Tip find someone who is successful in your niche business. Ask them if you could meet with them because you would like to open up the same type of business. Of course be respectful, this might take several e-mails/calls to different companies but I know someone will help you. Then ask them if they wouldn’t mind if you could have a copy of their template of their business plan. You don’t want their confidential information just the layout of how they did their business plan. Companies normally will not give you their numbers and specific details which we have to respect their privacy. All you would like is the template for you to have something to work from and fill out for your business plan.
Time management
1 hour a day Monday to Friday checking e-mails, social sites, responding back to people. You don’t need to be on these sites longer than that.
1 to 2 hours providing educational information, articles, video’s …etc whatever you feel comfortable with. With the Social Technologies Marketing has never been easier to get your message in front of millions of people.
IMPORTANT! Do not pitch or sell in these educational posts. The goal is to help people first, then provide knowledge about you again not selling and last how to contact you if they need more information. When people get to know and like you. They will develop trust in you which if they need your product/service they will want to work with you. But this takes time and consistency. Think of it like dating you’re not going to want to sleep with someone on the first date; you normally want to get to know the person develop a trust with them. Then the relationship will develop. This is no different in business, which is why we need to be loving and caring. Not a 17 year old teenager trying to get laid when it comes to business.
Now if you coach clients here is another Tip which I had to learn the hard way. Take your time while talking to people, be supportive, answer questions to a POINT and when you feel this should be a session with you be honest with them. If they can’t do it for whatever reason, thank them for their time and let them know if they would like to have a session with you give you a call anytime. This way you are not giving all your energy away and they have an understanding that your time and energy is valuable. If they can’t afford to sit with you have resources available for them. For example I have this blog, my YouTube Channel…etc where people can still get information to help them. Remember the first goal is to help people as best as you can, making sure there is a balance in energy.
Hours of Operation
Now when it comes to office hours I can’t provide you information on that because each person’s situation is different. That is more a personal preference. But I would say this, make sure you don’t work past 7pm at night if you can, this way you can spend time relaxing, recharging and getting to bed around 10:30pm.
Money
This is a hard one for a lot of people and it is hard to sit down with someone at first and say “To sit down with me will be $100 per session”. Then sitting there hoping they will say yes. When they don’t say “Yes” you feel terrible, then you start to question yourself, is your rate too high, did you not sell yourself properly…etc. I have been there and here is how I over came it.
First write down your expenses per month
Rent/Mortgage
Car expenses
Food
Clothes
…etc
Here is a sample of an MS Excel 2007 Template how to figure out your hourly rate. I want to give you a few parameters so you know how I figured this out.
To get a copy of the MS Excel Sheet click here—> Template for hourly rate
Here is a break down of the formulas
In the Expenses area
-Weeks are divided by 4 weeks per month.
-The day expenses are divided by 5 working days per week.
-The Hourly rate is divided by 6 working hours per day.
-I provided examples of rates per hour, per day, per week, per month. The year income equation was multiplied the week salary by 48 weeks in the year. This gives you 4 weeks off per year for vacation, training, sick days…etc.
I also added a savings in the row to show you that you must also calculate this into your hourly rate.
This gives you what I call the floor rate, once you have figured this out for all your expenses and costs. You should never ever and I mean never go below your floor rate. If you do then as explained before you are just using your energy.
Once you calculate everything out it might seem a little over whelming at first to try to figure out how you can do this. I know I have been there when I did mine but I will be honest with you it is possible it just takes time, patience and consistent action.
When I stopped chasing money and started truly helping people there was no question about how much my rate was, it was more “when can we start working together”. The reason for that was because people knew my first goal was to help them and the exchange for that was payment so I can help them more. That is why I don’t pitch or sell I answer peoples questions and provide education. Even in a consult with a potential client I ask them about them, answer any questions they might have and then ask them would they like a session. If they can’t for whatever reason I ask if they would like some more resources to give them more information. If they say yes I tell them my rates and we get started.
I know this was a long one and I hope you got a lot out from it.
All I ask in exchange is you share all my posts through your Social sites. This way you help me with my goal which is to help as many people as I can through the 2012 transition.
Love & Chi,
Brandon Krieger
www.BrandonKrieger.com
43.640887
-79.641634
